


All the Million Hours

by OllieoftheBeholder



Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (yes the same one as before), Canon-Typical The Spiral Content (The Magnus Archives), Martin is forced to relive all of Jon's marks, No. 11: Crying, No. 12: Broken Down, No. 16: Hallucinations, No. 19: Grief, No. 25: Disorientation, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Part of a longer fic, Time Travel Fix-It, implied emotional abuse, some s5 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27192418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OllieoftheBeholder/pseuds/OllieoftheBeholder
Summary: Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding his journey back in time through the domain of the Spiral. Recorded direct from subject, April 28, 2016.
Relationships: Background Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1962028
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	All the Million Hours

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the same fic I'm working on that the last one (Still Lies the Midnight) is/will be part of. I don't think you need too much context from the rest of the fic to get what's going on in this statement, really.
> 
> Title is from "All the Wasted Time", written by Jason Robert Brown for the musical _Parade._

I think the first thing that struck me was the décor.

Silly, isn’t it? To think that the domain of something that literally thrives on disorientation and chaos would be remotely like I expected it to be? But I did, somehow. There were all the descriptions in all the statements we’ve heard, and then the time Tim and I were trapped in those halls, and I...I really thought they would still look like that.

But they didn’t. There was no patterned wallpaper, no carpet runner, no mirrors or photographs or anything like that. The walls were painted, and they were painted in—in jellybean colors. It’s the best way I can describe it. Really, really bright colors. The floors were...tiled, maybe? Linoleum? I wasn’t quite sure, but they were brightly-colored, too. Even the ceiling. But none of them _matched._ When I first stepped through the door, I was standing in the hallway and the wall in front of me was a yellow so bright it almost hurt my eyes, but the floor was red, the same color as Melanie’s nail polish, and the ceiling was a really vibrant green. It was like standing in the middle of a traffic light.

I heard the door close behind me and sort of figured I was alone, but when I turned around, there was Helen, and she was taking something out of the door. I think it might have been a key? She put...whatever it was...in her pocket and then turned to me with that...smile of hers. I asked her which way to go.

“It doesn’t work that way,” she told me. “And I think you know that. Start walking. I’ll meet you when you get to the way out.”

And then she was just...gone. It wasn’t like she walked away, or stepped through one of her doors or whatever. It was like she’d never been there at all.

So I started walking. I thought, well, trying to make any _sense_ of this place was sort of going against the point of it, or leaning into the point of it, or something like that. I-I mean, it’s what the Spiral _wants,_ is that increasing sense of panic and desperation as something that ought to be straightforward and logical, something that ought to take you in a straight line or to a particular place or whatever, keeps befuddling you and turning you around and whatnot. So I thought that if I just accepted that I wasn’t going to find any sense of direction, and that I couldn’t actually know where I _was,_ let alone where I would end up, and just sort of wandered for a bit, I’d eventually get where I was going.

Only it didn’t work that way. The walls kept...changing. So did the floor and the ceiling. I’d know I was passing through another part of the corridors when I’d suddenly go from yellow walls to purple to orange, or the ceiling would go from green to pink to blue, or the floor would go from red to white to teal. I didn’t really pay attention to it, but then I realized I was back in the first part of the corridor. I’d have thought it was just a coincidence—I mean, there are only so many colors in the world and so many different combinations of them you can have—but there was the door, looking totally out of place in the bright, sterile lines of the corridor.

So then I started trying other options. I walked along with my eyes closed for a bit, wondering if maybe the colors were leading me astray, but when I opened them again, it was like I hadn’t moved. I tried heading in the other direction but still not thinking about my route. Same effect.

I was getting frustrated, and I was about to yell for Helen to just give it _up_ already, to stop messing about with the hallways and lead me through. I was upset, actually. I mean, she’d offered to guide us—well, me—through to the Panopticon before, and frankly, if this was how she’d planned to “help” before, I wasn’t impressed. And I—I don’t like not knowing where I am, or where I’m going.

You know, I never really thought about it before, but...Mum used to...when I was younger, we’d be out somewhere, and she’d suddenly tell me there was something we had to do, and to keep up with her, and then she’d start walking really fast and threading through the crowds, and I’d be stumbling along trying to follow her. She wouldn’t hold my hand or anything, she’d just expect me to stay with her. And she’d never tell me where this “something” was, so any time I fell behind or lost sight of her for a second, I’d start panicking, because if I lost her, I wouldn’t know where to meet up with her. I _did_ lose her a couple of times, and I’d just...start crying, and I never knew where to look for help. I felt like that again. Small. Weak. Helpless. Like I couldn’t do anything right, like I couldn’t do this _one_ little thing she’d asked me to do, which was just...keep...up. And there wasn’t anyone there to help me figure out where the person who’d left me behind was, since I didn’t know where to meet her.

That’s when I thought...wait, I don’t know what route I’m supposed to take, but I _do_ know where I’m going. I know what the end result is, just not how to get there. So I stopped thinking about wandering aimlessly and started thinking about wandering with a _purpose._ I focused on where—and when—we were trying to get. I even closed my eyes for a minute to make sure I was picturing it exactly right. And then I opened my eyes, and I started walking again.

After a while, the hallway started changing, which was how I guessed I was going the right way. The jellybean colors started fading, getting more...muted. Not really pastels, but just less vibrant. They started blending together, too, so they weren’t so weirdly different, like they were hues in a palette. And then they were all grey, featureless stone, like the—well, like the tunnels, only more regular. The grey got darker and darker until suddenly it was almost black. Then there was a carpet up the middle of the stone floor, blood red, and instead of electric lights the walls were lined with torches. I mean actual, fire-burning sticks jammed into wall sconces. I figured I was getting close.

And then...the hallway turned.

Look. I know how those...I know how the Spiral usually works. You can’t _see_ the turns, it looks like it just goes on and on in a straight line forever, because that’s what disorientates you. But this was an actual, L-shaped jog in the corridor. Part of me figured that the Spiral had decided, well, I knew enough to expect certain things, so it would have to throw me off by putting in things I wasn’t expecting—like actual, visible bends in the road. I didn’t doubt that if I tried to go around that corner I’d smack face-first into a wall. But I didn’t doubt for a minute that if I tried to go straight I’d hit a wall, too. You can’t try be logical with the Spiral. You’ll go mad. So I figured the only thing to do was try the corner.

I went around, and...it wasn’t just a hallway. It was more like a...gallery. There were pictures, or paintings, on every wall, in these big, ornate frames, and there was a neat little plaque next to each one with some writing on it. Seemed like it went on forever. I figured...well, it had to be the way through, didn’t it? There wasn’t any other way to go. I assumed there’d be an end eventually, or one of the paintings would be of the door out, or would _be_ the door, or whatever, so I started in.

I looked at the first one, partly because I wondered if I’d recognize the door if I saw it and partly because...well, I was curious. It was very professional-looking. I couldn’t tell if it was a painting or a photograph, actually. It was of a woman, kind of a pretty one really, with her hair pulled up in a pile of curls on the top of her head, and a round face and steel-rimmed spectacles. She was standing in kind of a dark-ish room, but there was something behind her—a table, maybe? And there was a shadow over her, and she—she was screaming. I wondered who would paint something like that, what they would call it, so I looked at the plaque. It was formatted just like a sign at a museum, with the name of the piece, the name of the artist, and the date of the painting, you know?

But this one...it said, _“Show Yourself”, Sasha James, July 29, 2016._

I hadn’t realized what I was looking at, not at first, but when I looked again...it was the shirt that got me. Dupplin checks in shades of pink and purple. You remember—with the ruffled sleeves and the pearl-and-silver buttons. It was Sasha’s favorite, she wore it all the time. And the woman in the picture was wearing it. That’s when it hit me, all of a sudden, that this wasn’t a painting _by_ Sasha, it was a painting _of_ Sasha. I just hadn’t recognized her, and that was...upsetting.

I turned away from it and looked at the next painting, and I got a real shock when I realized it was a picture of Tim. He was smirking. I—I _knew_ that look of his—it’s the one he always used to get when he was teasing someone, you know? That smile of his that seemed to say “I know you want to hit me but you won’t because I’m so funny”? Except...there was something odd about it. An edge, maybe. His eyes were narrowed and it was obvious that he knew whoever he was talking to _didn’t_ find his joke funny, like it was only funny to him. And he—he had the scars. He didn’t tease anyone like that after the attack on the Institute, or if he did, it was...bitter, so I couldn’t figure out who or what he might have been teasing. So I looked at the plaque for that one.

_“I Know”, Timothy Stoker, August 7, 2017._

The date. The date’s what hit me. _That’s_ a date I won’t ever forget. I looked back at the picture, and I realized he was holding something in his hand, and the background was...well. There was smoke, and debris, and fire, and it was all starting to—to boil up around him.

I looked back at that first painting, and I saw...things I hadn’t noticed before. I saw that whatever was making the shadow was...reaching for the Sasha in the painting, and I saw...bits, flying around. I realized I was looking at the moment that the—the not-Sasha tore our Sasha to pieces, and the other picture was the moment between Tim pressing the detonator and—and what came after. I was looking at their deaths.

It was the next one that made me realize what was wrong about it. I mean...I mean, seeing these at _all_ was wrong enough, right? We’re talking _instants,_ split-seconds, something no one should have had time to paint or a good enough camera to photograph. They were almost like someone had flash-frozen the actual, physical moment and put it in a frame. That’s wrong enough, right? But...but it wasn’t until I got to Daisy’s that I actually realized it.

At first blush, it was exactly like the others. That...moment. The plaque. _“Basira”, Detective Alice “Daisy” Tonner, date unknown._ But...but this one I was _there_ for. I remembered that instant. I might have been...a _little_ distracted at the time, but I _was_ looking when Basira emptied her gun into...into whatever Daisy had become. And I know it—she—was looking at Basira, and that she didn’t recognize anyone else.

But in the picture...she wasn’t looking at Basira. I mean, Basira wasn’t exactly _in_ the picture, any more than the not-Sasha was actually in Sasha’s picture or Nikola was in Tim’s. But you could see where she was, where the bullets were coming from. And Daisy wasn’t looking in that direction. She was looking _out,_ through the painting.

She was—she was looking at me. Directly at me. It was like I was back in that junkyard and she was right in front of me, and she saw me, and she _knew_ me. And she was—she was scared, Jon. I could see it in her eyes. She was scared and she was pleading with me to help her, to save her. Maybe she was accusing me a little. Like she was saying _I am dying and you are doing nothing to stop it._

And that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t thought about it before, because I w-wasn’t there for the others when they actually happened, but—but when I looked back at Tim and Sasha, they were looking at me, too. Sasha was scared and Tim was angry and it was clear that they both _knew_ , whenever or— _wherever_ they were, that I was looking at them and that they were dying and I wasn’t doing a damn thing about it.

I—I kept looking. I couldn’t _stop._ There were dozens— _hundreds_ of them, all of them somebody I cared about, or knew, or—or knew of, at least. A lot of the people from the statements. My mother. My grandfather. Gertrude Robinson. Jurgen Leitner. All of them in the exact moments of their deaths, all of them looking at me with either pleading or accusation or both, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

The corridor went on forever, or that’s what it seemed like. It stretched in both directions and I couldn’t escape it. But there was a doorway, and I—I went through it. I don’t know if I thought it was the way I was supposed to go, or if I just wanted to get away from all the damn _pictures_ , but I went through it. And as soon as I did, the door behind me disappeared, so I figured, okay, I’m going the right way. And it calmed me down, but only for a second.

It was a long, narrow room, maybe big enough for a single person to walk. And there were more framed pictures, evenly spaced, lining one side of the wall. The other side was completely bare. When I came in, I was facing the first picture, so I didn’t even have the option of not looking. So I looked.

At first, it didn’t seem too bad, you know? Nothing...deadly. Just a house, and two people. One of them was standing on the threshold of the house, the other on the path leading up to it. The door was open. The person on the path was a little boy, ten at the most, and he looked—terrified. Upset. It was like he wanted to cry or scream but didn’t know if he was allowed, and he was reaching a hand out desperately. The person on the porch was a young man, and he looked like something had caught him off-guard...and there were threads, thin silver strands, seeming to wrap around him, and something dark leaning out of the open door, like it was going to grab him.

For a moment, I was just relieved that neither of them was looking at me. Whatever was going on in the picture, whatever that poor man was involved in or that poor boy was witnessing, neither one of them blamed me for it. And then I realized I recognized something. The little boy’s face—his eyes. I knew those eyes, better than I knew my own.

My breath caught in my throat. I looked at the plaque. All it had was a title and a year. _It Is Polite to Knock, 1996._ That’s all it said...but I knew what it was. What I was looking at. And then, when I looked back at the painting, I could see it, very faintly. On the little boy’s outstretched hand was the lightest outline of a spider’s web.

I moved on to the next painting. I don’t think I could have stopped myself. And it was a man, sitting at his desk, a sheaf of papers in front of him and a tape recorder next to it. He had this...vacant look in his eyes, like he was only partly aware of what was in front of him, and he was wearing a cardigan. He had one hand on the papers, holding them up a little so he could read them, and the fingers on his other hand were tangled up in the cuff of the cardigan, like he was stretching it over his fingers and playing with it. The eyes were behind glasses now, but it was very obviously the same man as the little boy in the first picture. The plaque said _Statement Begins, 2015._ Just over the man’s shoulder was the faintest outline of an eye.

The third one was of the same man. Only this time, he was—he was in pain. His head was thrown back a-and he was screaming, I could almost hear it through the painting. There was another person behind him, another man, and he was screaming too, and standing over them was a woman, o-or what might have _been_ a woman, once, but was honeycombed with white, grotesque worms. There were more of them, and they were—they were attacking the two men, but the one in the foreground, the one who’d been in the other paintings, he was already hurt, and I—I felt so guilty, like it was my fault, even without the man having to look at me and accuse me. He didn’t need to. I was already blaming myself. The plaque said—and it would have made me laugh if I hadn’t been so upset by the picture—it just said _Ah, Shit, 2016._ There wasn’t an outline of anything in that picture, just what was actually there, or at least actually visible.

I—I was having a bit of trouble breathing at this point. I knew what I was looking at, of course I did, but I couldn’t _stop,_ I had to see all of them, so I looked at the fourth one. It was the same man, in the same office as the second picture, even wearing the same damned cardigan. Scars dotting his face and arms now, hair a little longer and with a bit more grey in it, but still the same man. He wasn’t alone, though. There was another...person there. He didn’t look right, like he’d been put together by someone who only had a partial idea of what a human being looked like. His hands—his fingers—looked like they had knives on the end of them instead of fingernails. He was...grinning, but it looked too big for his face. I think he might have been giggling. It looked like he was giggling. And he—he had one finger buried in the man’s side. The man was crying out in pain, but he also looked upset and scared. The plaque read _There Has Never Been a Door There, 2016._ There wasn’t a symbol in that one, either.

The fifth one. The same man again. He was shaking hands with a woman. She was smirking, a really nasty smile, malicious delight. He was screaming, like _seriously_ in agony. Where their hands were clasped, there was a faint wisp of smoke coming up, and I swear I could almost smell burning flesh from where I stood. The plaque read _Just Shake My Hand, 2017._ Still no symbol.

The sixth one. Same man, and another man. The other man had scars, too—I think they’re called Lichtenberg figures? He looked bored. The first man was panicking. It looked like he was trying to scream, but you could sort of tell he wasn’t actually making any sound. And he was free-falling, they both were, but the other man looked...controlled, somehow? It was obvious only one of them was in any real danger, and it wasn’t the one who’d been struck by lightning. The plaque said _You Need to Learn Some Respect, 2017._ In the sky behind them was the impression of more lightning, but not actual lightning. Just another symbol.

Y—

[long pause, sounds of distress and internal struggle]

The—the seventh one...oh, God, I almost lost it then and there. It was the same man as in all the other pictures. He was...standing in a clearing. It was dark, and there was—a woman with him. She looked—angry, but also triumphant somehow? She—oh, _God,_ she had him by the throat, and she had a knife pressed against it. There was _so much terror_ in his eyes, and I d-don’t blame him. _I_ was terrified. I wanted to—but I couldn’t _do_ anything. I forced myself to look away from it and look at the plaque. _Stop...Asking...Questions, 2017._ There was no symbol in that picture, but there didn’t need to be, did there?

The eighth one. The man was bound to a chair, in a dark...warehouse? I guess? It was...actually, if I hadn’t known what it was, and, you know, I hadn’t already been a complete and utter wreck, I might’ve appreciated the painting as being kind of _artistic._ There were these shadowy figures all around him, but they weren’t people. They were...pretty obviously waxwork mannequins. In front of him was a woman, pretty, but...I don’t know how to explain it. I’m fairly certain she was another mannequin, but she seemed _alive_ , too. She was giving him this...almost impish grin, holding a tape recorder up in front of him. He was gagged, pretty thoroughly, and you could see he was straining against his bindings, and his eyes were panicky. The plaque said _I Thought You’d Make a Lovely Frock, 2017._ The shadows overhead made up an outline that kind of looked like a mask, one of those blank, featureless ones.

The n-ninth...I think that’s when I started crying. Didn’t look like all that much really, not compared to the others, but it was the man, lying in a grey hospital bed. Perfectly still. All the monitors perfectly flat but one. The plaque read _Make Your Choice, 2018._ Over the man’s face was a shadow that was...kind of shaped like a scythe.

The tenth. Actually a bit of a relief after that one, although it shouldn’t have been. It was the man and two women. They were in...what looked like a makeshift bunker of sorts. There was a bloody sheet, and the leg on one woman was bleeding. Honestly, it was all kind of chaotic, but the—the focal point was the woman with the bleeding leg, holding something sharp in her hand, jamming it into the man’s shoulder. The plaque said _Don’t Touch Me, 2018._ It was back to there not being a symbol in the picture.

The eleventh...was bad. There was the man who’d been in all the other pictures, and there was...calling it a man would be charitable. It was a mountain of flesh with a face. Enormous and bulging and... _gross._ It had its hand in the man’s torso and seemed to be pulling out one of his ribs, which was _not_ a pleasant sight _at all,_ and something about the man’s expression...I don’t think the actual extraction was a surprise, but it was obvious he hadn’t expected it to _hurt_ quite as much as it did. The plaque read _Mine Now, 2018._ No symbol in this one, either.

The twelfth. It was mostly dark. There was the man, and—and the woman from the seventh painting, the one who...but she was scared in this one. So was he. They were both...pressed under dirt and rocks, and they both looked like they might be struggling to breathe. They were gripping one another’s wrists, not really holding hands, just like they were trying to maintain that contact and not...lose one another. The man had a tape recorder in his other hand. The plaque said _There Isn’t Even an Up, 2018._ Just barely visible in the dirt above them was the faint outline of a coffin.

The thirteenth. Unlucky number thirteen, but actually, it was the most peaceful one out of all of them. The man was standing in front of an open door. Inside was...black, but it was the purest, richest black you’ve ever seen in your life. He had a look on his face, both awestruck and terrified. The plaque said _It’s Beautiful, 2018._ There was a symbol overhead—a curved line with four lines coming off of it, like a drawing of a closed eye.

The—the fourteenth. There was the man, standing in the middle of this thick, grey fog. It was swirling all around him. He was...the expression on his face...h-he was panicked and terrified and upset and...all of it. It looked like he might have been about to cry. His teeth were clenched and he was—he was looking around him. Like he was trying to—to find something. The plaque said _I Did This to Him, 2018._

I don’t know if there was a symbol in that one. Maybe not. I couldn’t look hard enough, because that was when I broke.

I fell on my knees. I was sobbing and gasping for breath. I was...definitely having a full-on panic attack. There was another painting on the hall, I could _feel_ it, but I was fighting the urge to get up and look at it. I _wanted_ to, something was compelling me to, but I c-couldn’t, because I _knew_ what it would be of. I knew I’d look at it and see the cabin, and the statement, and the look on the man’s face, and the world ending outside the window. I could _hear_ that moment, the rushing of wind, the gathering storm. I swear I could hear the other paintings, too—the gasping and the screaming, worms squirming and crickets chirping, the crash of the ocean and the rush of the wind, beeps and creaks and static, so much static—and it was just...it was just so much.

I was just about to turn around and look, because I couldn’t _not,_ when I heard a voice say, “Well, _that_ wasn’t very nice.”

The noises stopped. I hadn’t realized they were anywhere but in my own head until that moment, but all I could hear then was me. I looked up and...the room had changed. It was plain grey stone, just a small antechamber really. The wall in front of me was blank.

I was still struggling to catch my breath, and I know I was still crying, but I turned and saw Helen standing next to me. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was scowling. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her not smiling, but she...definitely wasn’t happy.

“When I find out who’s been playing in _my_ hallways, we’re going to have a little...chat,” she said. “And they won’t like it.” She looked at me for a minute, and then added, “On the other hand, they’ll like having a chat with _me_ more than they’d like having a chat with the Archivist. If he finds them first, I want to be there to watch.”

She helped me up. No claws, which...I appreciated. I was still struggling to get myself back together. Helen turned me around and pointed to a picture on the wall behind me.

“Here,” she said. “Look at this one instead, until you feel better. There’s time.”

This picture...i-it was the same man as in the other pictures, but he looked...he was still tired, but calmer. He wasn’t afraid. Quite the opposite, actually. He was sitting on one end of a ratty old couch, wearing a sweater that was way too big for him, hair pulled back out of his eyes. He was looking up at—he _was_ looking directly at me, and he was smiling. He was reaching out his hands, one sort of turned under like he was going to be taking something.

I remembered that moment. I could _feel_ it. That first night in the cabin, we’d just had dinner. You’d cooked, so I’d told you to go sit down in the other room while I cleaned up, and then I made tea and brought it out. You were lost in thought at first, but when I came in, you looked up at me and smiled, just like that, and I—I felt _safe,_ for the first time in months.

That was the first time, wasn’t it? The first time you said the words? I tried to play it off, you looked so startled, but then you recovered and doubled down on it and...

It was a good memory.

I stood there for I don’t know how long, staring at that picture, that _moment,_ letting it push all the other ones I’d seen out of my head. Letting myself remember how it felt. Taking that comfort. I could feel myself relaxing, feel myself starting to smile.

A—and then there came the pain. I don’t know how to describe it. A sudden explosion of pain, like a migraine on steroids. I felt like something— _popped,_ inside my head, just behind my eyes. No...no, not _behind_ them. Not behind.

I don’t think I screamed. I think I wanted to, but it hurt so bad I couldn’t. The world went white, and I could feel something—not tears, something thicker, more gelatinous—trickling, _pouring_ down my cheeks. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life—the worst physical pain, anyway.

And then everything went black. I guess I passed out. Next thing I knew, I heard a voice calling my name, teasing me about long nights and confusing my hours. I opened my eyes and asked what time it was, and Tim told me it was nine in the morning.

I’m just glad I realized what had happened before I said something stupid about the power being out.


End file.
